Review of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) by Harry W — 09 Nov 2013

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen caught my eye after its numerous criticisms, but its appeal came from its director Stephen Norrington who directed Blade, as well as the fact that Sean Connery played the lead role.

Although it may not follow the original comic book series as much as it could have, since I've never read it I didn't find any real problems in that are. I actually enjoyed its range of complicated characters with interesting powers because it reminded me of The Avengers. It isn't nearly as appealing and is significantly smaller scaled, but I appreciate its concept and enjoyed the visual representation of the characters.

And I found the action was predominantly great and made use of great visual effects and a taltented cast, combined with fine cinematography and good film editing as well as a few decent one-liners in the script.

Visually, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is great. Its packed with action for people looking solely for that or willing to sacrifice intelligent thought, but it also has Sean Connery in a routine awesome performance with none of his handsomeness, charisma or general talent as an actor for portraying a badass having decreased with age. His presence makes The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen more fun than it could have been if the lead actor was some unknown.

What is wrong with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is that its plot isn't that original and doesn't find any creativity as it develops or goes into all kinds of territory, and overall it's even confusing and dull at moments. Clever writing really just takes a backseat to the visual style of the film in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and director Stephen Norrington knows that the importance isn't in the script or the story, but the action, and he focuses on that. This is likely to leave fans of the original comic book series unhappy while satisfying those looking for the cheap thrills of action. Luckily I was one of those people so my disappoint is significantly lesser. But I still see some of the wasted potential in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Plus, for a film with an action heavy start, the action slows down pretty soon and therefore the dynamics rapidly decline in interest. Really, the pacing and scale of the scope is really inconsistent over the entire running time of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Stephen Norrington should have opened his eyes a little more during production.

But still, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a decent action film with a good lead from Sean Connery even if it didn't stay true to its source material.